Warning: Topic is Traumatic Birth
After the birth of my son I returned to work at about 8 weeks postpartum. I knew that I was at a risk for developing postpartum depression and had placed my DSM-IV (at the time) on the coffee table. I explained to my husband symptoms to watch out for-I knew my stuff. I felt prepared to deal with the mental health aspects on the other side of becoming a mother. I was wrong.
After a week or so of being back to work, I went to lunch with two of my co-workers at one of my favorite places. While we were talking I ended up sharing a little more detail about the traumatic birth of my son. This time when I told the story I was fueled by anger and not tears. My co-worker who had a baby a few months prior said, “This sounds like PTSD”. I rolled my eyes internally (and maybe externally). In my head I thought, “Trauma? No, this is just a really sucky thing that happened- this is not trauma.” People have bad birthing experiences- I was just one of those people. I’m pretty sure I said something curt (hello extreme denial!).
They both got up to go to the salad bar. The conversation moved on while the word trauma rolled around in my head. She sent me an article later in the day which she had mentioned at lunch. It was about a woman who had experienced a traumatic birth and what made her finally seek treatment. I was not appreciative. I was annoyed. I’m a counselor, I know trauma. I didn’t have PTSD. I read the article and still sat strongly in my denial for months.
Then, just prior to my son turning 3 months I started having recurrent nightmares. “Uh, oh...PTSD symptom”. Trauma. Denial started to fall away on the trauma part of this whole experience, but it still took many years for me to admit (to say out loud and to myself) that I was also experiencing PPD and PPA.
I started therapy a few weeks later after a lengthy search to find someone who specialized in traumatic births.
Traumatic births happen. They’re scary and make a huge impact across the lifespan of being a parent. After 5 years of talk therapy around my traumatic birth experience and other fertility stuff the treatment modality that changed my life and brought me back from the edge was EMDR. I was barely functioning some days and I was desperate to try something new. I learned about EMDR in grad school and the story that was shared had always stuck with me. In a matter of months, I was finally able to reprocess the traumatic birth and started to feel like myself again. I can’t say that is the result for everyone, but I do know that it can be a powerful tool in the therapeutic process.
Seeking therapy after a traumatic birth experience is tough. But I can confidently say treatment, no matter the modality, can significantly improve your life.